


to Spar and Not to Spar

by FriendlyLegoPerson



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Aphrodite Cabin - Freeform, Crush, F/M, Kinda, One Shot, Training, drew's character potential
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 12:45:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17001921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendlyLegoPerson/pseuds/FriendlyLegoPerson
Summary: Takes place before the Titan War, Michael looses a sparing match and everyone teases him about his crush.





	to Spar and Not to Spar

Michael raised his arms up by his head and circled around the section of the arena he and Clariese were sparring in. ‘Why did I have to get partnered with Clariese? Dam you Lee.’ Clariese smirked. “Scared, wimp?” she taunted. Michael grit his teeth. ‘Clariese thinks she’s better than me. We’ll see about that.’

Michael jumped out of the way of Clariese’s tackle charge. ‘Maybe she’s off balance… no.’ Clariese was a great fighter, and knew better than to count on tackling Michael right off the bat. …And she knew how to spin and kick.

Ompff. Michael groaned and bent over, clutching his stomach. Clariese’s hook kick had caught him right in the gut. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Clariese’s foot coming towards him again, and did the only thing he could think of. He dropped face-first to the ground.

To be fair, it did work. Clariese’s foot sailed over his head. But now he was face down in the dirt and Clariese was not above kicking him while he’s down. Which she did. Michael managed to roll away from a few kicks but the rest caught him solid along his sides and back. ‘yeah… I’m not winning this.’ “I surrender!” he yelled.

Clariese laughed. “That was easy.” she quipped, bending down and offering Michael a hand up. Michael took it and pulled himself to his feet. “You only won so easily because I let you.” he said, feeling the need to defend his pride. That was a blatant lie, Clariese was just better than him at had-to-hand. But the two of them had this rivalry going and he didn’t want to just lose.

“Why, so you could go talk to miss perfect over there?” Clariese retorted, her face making it clear she didn’t really believe Michael had gone easy on her. “What?” Michael asked.

“You wanted to finish quick so you could talk to Drew.”

This was just like Clariese. She knew full well he hadn’t gone easy on her, but she decided to let it slide so she could tease him about Drew. Ugh. Michael stuck out his tongue at her. Childish, sure, but he couldn’t exactly flip her off in the middle of the arena.

“Real mature Michael. Reeeeal mature.”

Michael headed to the benches and sat down next to Drew, because he did want to her, screw what Clarisse thought.

“Hey Michael. Drew said, not looking up from the arts and crafts project she’d brought to work on. Drew sat out of pretty much every training activity.

Contrary to popular belief, it was not because she thought she was better than everyone else. People always thought that because Drew was a daughter of Aphrodite she couldn’t fight, so Drew showed them exactly what they expected to see. She was actually a pretty good fighter especially for someone who only practiced by herself or with friends in her free time. Michael didn’t understand the sentiment, but he got her reasoning.

Drew didn’t bother to look up from her craft as she snapped, “What is it?”

Michael rolled his eyes. “I just wanted to say hi.”

“Oh. Sorry for snapping at you. I thought you were going to try to convince me to spar again.”

“I’ve given up on that. But if you change your mind it’s important and-“

“Michael, every time I win people claim I used charmspeak, and the other cabins won’t take me seriously. I’m not going to waste my time.” Drew huffed. Michael sighed. Training was life-or-death, blowing it off to prove a point was stupid, and he told Drew as much.

“I’m not leaving myself defenseless.” Drew said, “I have arts and crafts during your free time if you want to spar later.”

“Oh, great. Now you’re skipping art.”

Drew held up her project, “I did the craft already.”

“Just because you checked all the required boxes doesn’t mean you’re getting everything you need! Interacting with people is an important part of this! You should know that, you-“ Michael cut himself off before he could say ‘you’re a daughter of Aphrodite’. Drew hates it when people assumed things based on her parentage, even if the assumption happened to be true. He quickly corrected himself, “-you know at lot about social stuff.” Not the snartest sentence he’d ever uttered, but oh well.

Drew rolled her eyes again. “So what?” she challanged. Michael sighed again. “I’m worried about you, okay? What if the monsters get you because you had subpar training?” he said.

“I’ll be fine. I don’t see many Greek monsters in Brooklyn anyway.” Drew assured him. Something about that statement seemed off but Michael dismissed it.

Michael held out his arms for a hug and Drew accepted. Over Drew’s should he could see Lee wink at him. Michael groaned internally. Just because he liked Drew didn’t mean he couldn’t do stuff for her as a friend.  _‘What kind of creep would I be if I couldn’t have a conversation with her without everything being about my crush?’_

 

When training was over Michael joined his cabin on their way to lunch. Lee fell into step beside him.

“Sooo. You and Drew a thing yet?” Lee teases.

Michael huffed. “No. Leave it alone, okay.” Then he sped up to walk next to Will.


End file.
